Guess the Joke's on Me

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I work for a large book publisher. I read and copy edit manuscripts, catalog copy, ads, press kits, prelims, cover copy -- day in, day out. I've done so since the late eighties.

Sometimes you want to mix up the pot for a bit, so you go elsewhere in order to refresh your brain, and seek a change.

In 2000, I sought elsewhere for a change, for an addition rather, and began to do freelance work for a couple of other publishing house. Granted, freelance work was not regular, because of my time restrictions -- in March 2000, I had a baby and that took up much of my time -- but for the next two years, I managed to copy edit several manuscripts that were so far removed from what I'd been working on for my publishing company. For some reason (I still don't recall what it is), I took a break from freelancing between 2002-2004. Then I went back, this time with a new contact person.

I had to form a new working relationship with this person, because she was my liaison between her company and my getting books to work on. I guess I passed her personal test, because she began to offer me work. She even gave my name to a couple of other company contacts so that I could also get manuscripts from them at times.

Again, I've only done a handful of manuscripts for her, over the past year and a half, which was fine by me, according to my personal schedule.

But about a month ago, my company sent out an e-mail from the CEO, saying that our company had bought another publishing company.

You wanna know what? That other publishing company is the one I'd been doing freelance work for! How ironic is that!? How sad is that!? So that source of a little extra money for me is now plugged. And as luck will have it, I'll probably be the one to copy edit these newly acquired book lines...as part of my regular day job!

Does anyone out there have a publishing company that they don't plan to sell in the next couple of years? Do you have a need for freelance editors/ copy editors/ proofreaders?